Writer Cat Fight

Magazine take-outs do not, let's face it, easily translate to the work of fiction. The creation process is different. In fiction, you can - as some of these authors were - be ahead of your time. You can afford to be a visionary, even if that vision proverbially ends up staring down a long gutter. The audience can "get" you in later generations.

Magazine writers - journalists in general - don't have that luxury. If their voice, however lovely its progress might be toward greatness, utterly fails to reach an audience now, it's not likely to get 12 more chances to reach it. That voice is likely to be out of a job. They must leave some kind of relatively immediate impression. You do not write about, for example, a dead man coming from the Iraq War in the distinct hope that, 50 years from now, people understand what you really meant by the story. You write it with the distinct hope that people understand what it means right now, it changes them now, and that change creates a ripple effect in the near future.

As such, the pressure is a little different. The story must have structure. It cannot read like A Clockwork Orange or some Faulkner novels. It can't read like Cormac McCarthy. It cannot roam deep, deep, deeper into the heart of language like Nabokov's work, because the reader will get lost and give up. The writing is geared toward lyricism, sure - but also impact. There has to be clarity, authority and purpose - but also stirring narrative - and if you're locked into creating that kind of work, the mindset that produces it is <i>necessarily</i> worried about the audience. <i>Are they getting the picture? Is this moving them? Am I leading them to water without saying, 'there, the water! I'm leading you!'</i> It's a logical extension, therefore, to be worried about the presumed "elite" of that audience - judges trained to be good, careful readers of magazine articles.

I'm not trying to "defend" anyone, per se. But I am trying to say "look at the craft that creates the motivation, and the mechanisms that get the craftsmen and craftswomen from genesis to coronation." That, to me, seems more useful that the typical cat-scratch nonsense of "get over yourself/oh, OK, write your book/Phony!/Loser!" I just read Ozick's "Yiddish in America" last night for that.

There are flaws in such an approach, as there are in any of them. Writing, for example, for a spot in BASW isn't that hard for a writer of a certain amount of access and freedom. They can write a great story or wax poetic on their belly crud, and it's still going to get strong consideration. There are stories in BASW that I would deem the equivalent of some guy unbuttoning his pants after a big meal and letting his gut hang out on the couch. The writing isn't tight, it doesn't turn many phrases, it's not particularly insightful. It's just long, colorful and writerly, an "Eat, Pray, Love" for sportswriters. I think judges enjoy those indulgences, however, and so one or two worm their way into the book almost every year. The NMAs generally tend to reward excellent work, the best of the high-wire acts, even if bias toward certain subject matter occasionally rears its head.

You can burrow too far into that mindset and find yourself like Xerxes, burning Athens just to rebuild it, but I can't just dismiss it out of hand solely for its immodesty and insecurity. Human beings are immodest and insecure. It's why we need some kind of God to humble and secure us. A naked expression of such emotions shouldn't be a daily occurrence but, hey - if it's where a person is in that moment, and it gets them through to more creation, OK, fine. If they want to share it, OK, fine. I wished David Foster Wallace and a whole bunch of musicians had shared it. They might still be around.

 

Good point, 21.

At least cats can learn to bury their crap under kitty litter.

 

missed it. thanks for slapping me around, dd and drunc. man, am i reeking of fail this morning.

most of all, apologies to tart. i suck. what more can i say?.

 

see what i mean? seems like i'm spending all morning apologizing... please accept another, tart. or should i say, 'dudette'?

 

b-b-b-b-ut i truly am a funny guy. usually one who reads more carefully. what a morning i'm having.

 

Please do not abrogate your responsibility as a voice of reason to SJ.

 

I haven't read the thread. Both parties are outstanding writers.

Isn't Raab the one who would dwarf Whitlock?

 

I thought I covered my bases when I wrote, "their own award application," but I guess not. I obviously don't mean those whose bosses have forced them to apply.

 

I'm kind of surprised that Alma's post is just sitting there, followed by what it's followed by. I've had my problems with him recently, but the dude got all of that pretty much exactly right. We're not talking about poetry here. Or novels. We're talking about journalism. It might be aspirational journalism, but it's still just journalism with nicer clothes. I think to pretend it's anything else—to pretend that it's anything other than a mean business—is a mistake.

Thank you, Alma.

 

Abrogate too much, and u will go blind

 

Clip. Save. Print. Tape to refrigerator.

 

Co signed. Preach on Brother Alama.